Thursday, March 31, 2011

My Head Hurts / Drug Store

The two topics really don't have anything to do with each other, but I'll explain. First: My head hurts because I have spent the better part of the past two days dealing with computer issues. I had it in my mind that when we eventually move to our new house, I would like to somehow simplify how music is accessed in the various rooms where one might want to listen to it. We have this thing called a Netgear Stora, which is essentially an external hard drive which automatically backs up the contents of the computer hard drive. You can also use it as a server to store, share and play photos, videos and music. I have part of my music library on the Stora and part on my hard drive in iTunes. So, why not put it all on Stora and then access it somehow. There are devices that can do that and here is where part of the headache comes in. The DMA (Digital Media Adapter) must be compliant with UPnP-AV, DLNA or Windows Media Connect. Okay, all of this is geared for home use and in the home there is generally one of me, a u-hC (nts). That's a user-home consumer (non-tech savvy). So why do they write all of this lingo that can't be understood by one of me? I read somewhere in the on line documentation that if I signed up for the "premium" service for $20.00 a year, I could use an iPhone, which I guess also means an iPod Touch. I can sign up for a 30 trial of this service at no cost. I signed up. It thanked me for signing up, but then said I wasn't signed up and wouldn't I like to try it for 30 days.

The second part of the headache: I got a Word document by email that I was supposed to sign and send back. Well, since I don't have Word on my computer, I couldn't do anything but look at it. I thought I had avoided this problem by switching from a Mac to a PC. Apparently not. I have Open Office which does most of the things that Micrsoft Office does and I thought it would open the document so that I could print it. Apparently not. I then read how if I downloaded Internet Explorer 9, I could edit Word docs right in my email, even if I don't have Word on my computer. I downloaded Internet Explorer 9. You would think that since it is a Microsoft product it would have preserved my home page (MSN) and my Hotmail sign in. But no. I now had a Google home page and was signed in with my Gmail account. My favorites, which used to be on the left of my screen are now hidden on the right side. A yellow star in the upper right corner of the screen doesn't get me to them and seems to do nothing. there were also a series of buttons at the top of my screen which have now vanished. Do people in companies actually get paid to sit around and try to figure out how to screw up your life by changing everything all around for no apparent reason? At least I was able to get the document to wake up and to allow itself to be printed, but what a pain it all was. So that's why my head hurts.

Now, on to drug stores, Rite-Aid in particular. Last week I called, using their automated phone systen, to order a refill on a prescription. A few days later I got a call that it was ready. I got in my car and drove there, about 10 minutes away, to find that they didn't have the drug I had wanted, but two other drugs (I order the other drugs through Shop Rite where they are cheaper). They said that my doctor had sent the two drugs, but that it was not a problem that they could put them back. Where's my other drug, the one that I ordered? They didn't have approval for that yet. I would have thought (silly me) that if I order drug "A" and approval comes in for drugs "B" and "C" someone would say, "This isn't what he ordered. Why don't we check and see what's wrong." What they said instead was, "He ordered a refill on drug "A" but he got "B" and "C" instead. Let's call him up and make him come over here for the wrong drugs. His blood pressure might soar and then we can sell him more drugs."

That's the news from here, where it is cold and rainy and computers, their drives, accessories and software are out of favor.

Friday, March 18, 2011

I Have Been Admonished

I have actually been admonished twice in the past week for not writing more on my blog, so I guess I had better write something. See? I wrote something, now leave me along.

Okay, okay, I'll write some more. We have been kind of busy lately. We bought a house in Webster, NY. (Mosey on over to the right side of the blog to click on to my link to Flickr where there are pictures posted.) We signed a contract. The closing won't be until sometime in May. Now we wish our buyers would get their house sold so that they can buy our house. We don't want to be real estate moguls for very long.

We also went to a funeral earlier this week for Scott, the husband of a former co-worker, Laura. He was 60 and had prostate cancer. Way too young to die. I feel badly for her. They were so happy together.

I also had two doctor appointments this week, one with my GP and one with my cardiologist. Both pronounced me in fine fettle although I got an A- for my cholesterol. It seems my LDL (bad) is 85 and the Doc wants it to be 77 or lower. So, it looks like I have to cut back on eating cholesterol. After that I had a nice lunch with a good friend and I don't think I ate too many LDLs then.

In the meantime we have been sorting through more stuff and packing. Didn't I say this before? Well, it never ends. Our house doesn't look cluttered, but when you go to put the things in boxes, it seems like we have way too much. It has been suggested that we try Craig's List to sell some things. Not being a child of the modern era, I am somewhat hesitant to try to sell things over the internet. I guess I should check it out because it has been reported to us that people sell all sorts of things on it, even cars.

Today is Anne's birthday. The weather certainly was magnificent. This afternoon we went for a walk on the Boardwalk in Point Pleasant with friends Angela and Bob and had dinner with them at the Wharfside. Many people had the same idea to walk on the Boardwalk and when we arrived at the restaurant we thought that they also decided to have dinner there judging by the number of cars. But, not so. I don't know where they all were, but we were seated right away and had an enjoyable meal.

Tomorrow is Saturday. For some reason I thought this past Thursday was Saturday. [Don't say anything.] Well, I mean I don't have to know what day it is unless it's Wednesday when I have to put out the trash, or Friday when I have to put out recycling, or Sunday when we go to church. The other days are fairly interchangeable. That was one advantage of going to work. I usually knew what day it was and I didn't show up on Saturday or Sunday. It's funny how my mind still thinks of Monday as the end of the weekend and looks forward to Friday as the beginning of the weekend. Now that we are well into the weekend I will have plenty to do until Monday arrives and I have plenty more to do.